Biting back
Herrera’s cheeky flick salvages visitors a point but Mourinho laments lack of ‘mad dogs’ in his side
There will be few aspects of this Manchester United season that will linger long in the memory but as a motif for the frustration and the mishaps that have plagued the Jose Mourinho era then Romelu Lukaku standing on the ball and injuring himself falling over will take some beating.
The Belgian scored his team’s first to end a run without a goal that had stretched back to Sept 15 although they had already fallen two down within 20 minutes against a Southampton team that have traditionally struggled to score goals at their own stadium. United gave themselves the proverbial mountain to climb and spent the rest of the game stumbling within sight of the peak, especially Lukaku – amid another new formation that did not work.
With a fresh injury to Chris Smalling, Mourinho selected three centre-backs, two of whom – Nemanja Matic and Scott McTominay – are not, strictly speaking, centre-backs. He dropped Anthony Martial, brought back in Ander Herrera and Lukaku and persevered with Paul Pogba who found himself overshadowed by Mario Lemina. The Saints midfielder seemed to revel in the limelight of a TV game against highprofile opposition and he was not the only home player who outperformed his opposite number.
It is a measure of how far standards have fallen at United that Mourinho did not seem that hurt by a draw which means his team have taken two points from their past three league games and are so far behind leaders Manchester City it has ceased to be an issue. There are 16 points between the Manchester clubs now and United could be nine off the Champions League places depending on how results fall on today.
The most biting criticism of his players from Mourinho was a strange remark about his lack of “mad dogs” in midfield, something he lamented in his television interviews and was later keen to contextualise so as not to offend dogs in general. “Because I love them,” he added, “I think they are better than many men.” Speaking to BT Sport he said that United had lacked intensity. “It doesn’t matter about the system, it has to do with the characteristics of the players and we don’t have many, with all respect, mad dogs – the ones who fight for the ball all the time and press. We don’t have many with that spirit.”
Later he clarified that Marcus Rashford, creator of both United’s goals, had been his mad dog for the evening until he came off with tiredness and injury.
Some United fans had booed that decision although Mourinho said the striker was playing with a previous injury and had asked to be withdrawn. “I would say Marcus was a mad dog until he was very, very tired and with little problems. Overall I’m not happy with the result, but I cannot be critical, I thought the spirit and desire was good. If they didn’t do better then it’s because they weren’t able to do it.”
With Smalling, Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly injured, Marcos Rojo was on the bench although he was not judged fit to start. “A situation of fragility,” Mourinho said of his defence, “a total situation of fragility.”
Southampton attacked well at the beginning with United vulnerable and Mark Hughes giving a first league start to the 18-year-old striker Michael Obafemi and a league debut to 19-yearold Yan Valery who played as a right wing-back. It was a magnificently entertaining first half between two sides who had, it seemed, only a very loose idea of what their managers wanted but were going to keep trying to get it right no matter how many attempts it took. Hughes said he selected Obafemi for his “blinding pace” and the young Irish international responded by making the first goal for Stuart Armstrong after a run from Nathan Redmond opened up the United defence. The ball was worked right to Armstrong to drive in his third goal in two games.
“Overall I can’t be disappointed with that performance,” Hughes said. “We created more efforts on goal. Clearly we need to defend better in those moments when they scored but we never came under sustained pressure.”
Even better was the Cedric Soares free-kick from the left channel which he whipped over the wall and past David de Gea. That had been conceded via a Rashford foul on Lemina on the edge of the area.
It was Rashford who made something from nothing from Pogba’s pass on 33 minutes, driving forward into the Saints half and then rolling the ball into Lukaku’s path to finish. Rashford again made the chance for Herrera on 39 minutes, getting to the byline and cutting the ball back for the midfielder to direct it in with the inside of his heel and his back to goal.
In the second half it was notable that Lukaku’s touch was going badly awry, culminating in him injuring himself standing on the ball and then falling. When that awkward observation was put to Mourinho he simply replied: “So tell that. Write that. Don’t ask me.”
There was one more big save from De Gea before the end, flinging himself at a Redmond shot after Pogba had coughed up possession to Lemina for no reason. No question who was the bigger dog in that particular fight and it was certainly not the Frenchman with the big reputation.